Alternatives to Transit City, the Spadina Extension, Yonge Extension, Etc.

[Ansem]

Is this still happening? I've heard that a conversion to LRT is now being carried forward.

If you take a look at the documents, they use the Mark II in the sketchs...

Wouldn't LRT would be more expensive?

On top of buying new trains, you have to convert the tracks and rebuild the station.

I bet 20$ on Mark II...which could lead to Eglinton using Mark II as well

 

[CodeMonkey]

Is this still happening? I've heard that a conversion to LRT is now being carried forward.

Although it would be a good idea, it seems less likely that a conversion from ICTS/ART to LRT would happen due to the fact that all the existing stations would have to be torn down and rebuilt just so it can hold the LRT trains vs just extending the current platforms to hold the new ICTS/ART trains.

 

[kEiThZ]

Is this still happening? I've heard that a conversion to LRT is now being carried forward.

Have a look at the display panels from the June 2nd consultation.

 

[CodeMonkey]

Have a look at the display panels from the June 2nd consultation.

Ive seen the June 2nd panels, they seem to still lean towards ART, but have kept the LRT option open at the moment.

 

[golodhendil]

I also said "people" and "in part," which clearly means not just you, though your support of the 'people prefer light rail over buses' argument was in direct support of replacing routes like Finch (but not limited exclusively to Finch, as was understood by everyone).

My citation of data showing preference for light rail over bus was mostly in response to a particular forumer's insistance that his anecdotal evidence of people hating or not caring about light rail trumps others' evidence. I wasn't supporting one position over another (and certainly not "directly supporting" the replacement of Finch or another specific corridor), I was merely pointing out the fact that such preference does exist, whether it's a reasonable/rational preference or not.

The TTC is definitely not a poor transit operator overall...plenty of bus routes are remarkably well-run and the subway runs fine as long as there's no delays due to jumpers or due to the system physically falling apart (which you can't really blame on the TTC). It most certainly is a reason to denigrate the implementation...that's the whole point here!

I can only speak from experience, and of the many transit operators that I have had extensive experience with, TTC is most definitely one of the worst. But, I don't claim my anecdotal evidence necessarily trumps others

That is the whole point of the stats. If an urban area is too sprawled out to support adequate transit, then surely it will have lower per capita ridership.

It is no surprise that more compact urban areas like Winnipeg and Ottawa have higher per capita ridership. Higher transit ridership requires higher densities.

There are many suburban parts of American urban areas that have no transit at all. But just because they have no transit, doesn't mean they should be excluded from the calculation. Because per capita ridership is the measure of the level of transit service and the effectiveness of transit. if you start removing poorly serviced areas form the calculation, it becomes meaningless.

I posted transit ridership stats and populations stats for the entire urban area. I am not going to cherry pick which stats are included or not.

For every urban or urbanized area ridership of ALL transit is included.

An entire urban area should be served by transit, no matter how sprawled out or suburbanized some parts of it are. It is as simple as that.

The problem is that a continuous urban area is defined very differently between the American and Canadian cities whose data is used. The American "urban areas" in that list each include literally mountains and deserts, separating small towns connected by a few dingy country roads dotted by rural mansions. If kept to the same standards, the data for Toronto should include the whole area from KW/Guelph to Peterborough and from Barrie to Niagara, and every farm village and rural cottage in between. No doubt that many American suburbs suffer from poor transit service and Canada has higher transit ridership in general, as I have said, but I'd like to see how our "per capita ridership" compares using those metrics. Moreover, your basis of using that comparison is that those are "light rail" based transit systems, but given the way they define the area and system, it's as meaningful (actually, probably much less meaningful) as saying the entire Golden Horseshoe is a subway-based system.

P.S. That bold quote sounds familiar

Indeed

 

[kEiThZ]

If you take a look at the documents, they use the Mark II in the sketchs...

Wouldn't LRT would be more expensive?

Not necessarily. Lots of cost savings in fleet commonality with all the Transit City routes, particularly since the route would connect with TC routes at Kennedy and one at Sheppard. Lots of options to share yards, crews, interlined service, etc.

On top of buying new trains, you have to convert the tracks and rebuild the station.

Although it's not as expensive as people make it out to be. And over the lifecycle of the line I am willing to bet that the cost saving from having commonality with the other TC lines would balance out the added expense of conversion from ART/ICTS to LRT.

I bet 20$ on Mark II...which could lead to Eglinton using Mark II as well

I seriously hope not. However, I just don't think there's enough cash to make all of Eglinton grade-separated. Also, the stop spacing along Eglinton outside the tunnel is actually closer than what's being planned along the SRT extension and all that discussion about how it would run at grade would be worthless if they ran ARTs on it. Why would they space stops that closely if they were planning on using ART/ICTS?

I don't mind taking you're $20 bet.

 

[Glen]

http://www.senyo.co.jp/english/produ/vista.htm

Looks cool, cheap and fun. Maybe even plausible.

 

[GraphicMatt]

http://www.senyo.co.jp/english/produ/vista.htm

Looks cool, cheap and fun. Maybe even plausible.

 

[GraphicMatt]

The only reason we even have streetcars today is because of Streetcars For Toronto back in '72. Every person on that committee was a stereotypical railfan, and they bamboozled Toronto into keeping them by coming up with "objective" reasons as to why they should have been kept. The arguments for LRT that I'm hearing here sound pretty much the same.

Killing the streetcars in the 1970s wouldn't have led to increased subway construction - very few cities were investing in public transit in the 80s and 90s. Had we killed the streetcars, we'd likely have the exact same subway network we have now, plus a ridiculous number of buses downtown on Queen & King street.

 

[Glen]

Matt,

That song was going through my head when I posted.

Seriously though, I think the issue of public system transit that operates in its own RoW being overbuilt is something worth looking into. 65,440 lb to seat 46 people. A glorified roller-coaster, if given serious thought, might be a workable solution. If light enough it could be elevated cheaply, plus there would be seats for everyone. Of course they would have to be convertible so we could raise our arms in the air and yell WEEEEEEEEEEEE!

 

[Whoaccio]

Seriously though, I think the issue of public system transit that operates in its own RoW being overbuilt is something worth looking into. 65,440 lb to seat 46 people. A glorified roller-coaster, if given serious thought, might be a workable solution. If light enough it could be elevated cheaply, plus there would be seats for everyone. Of course they would have to be convertible so we could raise our arms in the air and yell WEEEEEEEEEEEE!

Thats sort of the point of mini-metro systems, isn't it? These guideway transit systems are becoming quite popular in Japan. The only issue I could see is that rubber tires would be fail in our climate. Still though, look at the tight turns this thing can do:

 

[Glen]

Whoaccio,

Not like that. Imagine a true light rail system in place. Here is what it might look like replacing the Bathurst 511 @ Davenport...........

 

[ShonTron]

Now that's what I call the Vomit Comet!

 

[Dan416]

OMFG that picture made LOL. literally!

As for the Mark II trains, what is their capacity anyway? Isn't it near-subway? If it is, I wouldn't mind having it on Eglinton. Is Mk II convertible to subway like the Eglinton line will be?

 

[Voltz]

It can be near subway levels if the trains are long enough and fun frequent enough, but by then you might as well just built a subway.